Page 56 of Toxic Things I Love About You

It was a bit hard to pull up my big girl panties and act like I didn’t still want to kill him, but I did it with grace, I might add.

I sat in the plushy little chair on the private jet and waited. Maybe now was a good time for quiet reflection. Don’t think that family can be trusted and always have a backup plan. Got it.

I wondered what Roman was doing right now. Probably strangling Parks if they weren’t already in batman mode. I knew Parks had a bat cave. He was always my hero until Roman. Poor guys really had no idea what kind of little disaster I was.

It was okay though.

So this wasn’t going the way I thought it would. I’d still get some answers and then I’d figure out how to get out. He couldn’t keep me chained up forever.Maybe.

The cuffs were quickly becoming my least favorite thing. Roman would be disappointed when I took that off the table of fun things to try.

I swallowed. Was it suddenly stuffy in here? I did the best I could to fan myself as I waded through the feelings that I hadn’t realized I needed to lock away.

I’d chased off Roman, twice. Or was it more? Who was to say he would even want me back? What if I didn’t get the chance to tell him handcuffs had lost their appeal?

Well, I was damn good at screwing up my entire life, even when I really thought that I couldn’t for once, but really? For once, what?

I wanted him to see me as valuable. I wanted him to want me for more than just entertainment and sex.

He said he loved me though. And I was pretty sure that all-consuming feeling of thinking he was the air in my lungs had been accurately described as love. I think you could know nearly nothing and still recognize when you couldn’t live without someone. But I wanted to be more than loved. I wanted him to be proud of me.

Joke was on me, I just added some stress to his day. Whoops.

NINETEEN

roman

“They should have landed already,”I said as I stared at the empty tarmac. “Where did they land? They can’t just fucking change the flight plans like that.”

My guy on the other end of the phone swore.

“Boss, they submitted new plans. It looks like they haven’t left yet.”

I was ready to murder every single one of my guys, Rossi’s guys, and anyone who just looked at me wrong today.

“Fine, what’s the ETA on the team heading that way?”

I watched Parks do the same shit on his phone and wondered if my face looked as red as his.

“They’re almost there. And boss, the new flight plans are taking them to Colorado.”

My team needed to intercept them before they could take off. I refused to think of how much longer it would take me to get to her if they really took off 1700 miles away.

Fucking hell.

“Parks, they submitted new flight plans?”

He nodded and screamed something into the phone.

How is it we could have all the money in the world, and we still couldn’t make this all go away?

“What was she thinking?” I yelled at the now blank phone.

Parks was next to me, his phone now in his hand and away from his ear.

“It’s Emilee. She doesn’t usually have to think. Her father made sure to try to remove all options of ever having to do anything but marry some prick he had use for and let her just pop out babies.”

A sharp pain radiated through my head, and I realized I was clenching my damn teeth.

---